Timor-Leste

East Timor has offered a home to climate change refugees if rising sea levels make life on some Pacific Islands impossible.

Speaking to Radio Australia, President Anote Tong of Kiribati said while they were not in any immediate danger, preparations were underway in case the situation deteriorated in the decades to come.

“We are considering all possibilities and we’re not discounting the possibility that in time we will not only relocate within the country but it will be necessary to, I think, relocate in a country outside our border. It will become an option, as a last resort,” he said.

Human activities are putting at risk more than 85 per cent of reefs in the Coral Triangle region north of Australia, a study has found.

Reefs in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and the Solomon Islands are under extreme pressure from overfishing, pollution, coastal development and climate change, a report released at the International Coral Reef Symposium in Cairns says.